Michael Zyskowski is an Engineering Manager in Microsoft Research, leading a cross-discipline team of engineers in the evolution of research technologies into scalable, working solutions. He works with academic, industry and government/NGO collaborators to build partnerships and community ecosystems.

He is currently focused on eliminating the language barrier with Skype Translator.

Prior to MSR, he was into real-time flight simulation in the consumer gaming and enterprise markets. Specifically, Mike spent many years as a developer for the core simulation engine inside Microsoft Flight Simulator, Combat Flight Simulator and ESP (Microsoft's Enterprise Simulation Platform, leveraging game technology towards commercially viable vehicle simulation and training).

He has always straddled the developer/program manager role, being responsible for multiple versions of the SDKs and taking an active role in the success of the developer communities. Titles don't mean that much to Mike, as he likes to wear multiple hats and play the role of architect, designer, manager and developer on every project he is a part of.